Highlights of the 30th GST Council Meet

The 30th GST Council Meet concluded on September 28, 2018. It was chaired by Finance Minister, Sh. Arun Jaitley via video conferencing along with other state finance ministers. Here are some takeaways from the latest Council Meet.

1. Calamity Cess

Keeping in view the grave flood situation in Kerala, the state proposed the imposition of cess on SGST for the purpose of rehabilitation and other flood related works. The GST Council decided to constitute a GoM i.e. a Group of Ministers consisting of 7 members, who would devise plans to help distressed states during calamity. This was finalized after the approval of Sh. Arun Jaitley. The GoM will take care of the issues related to “Modalities for Revenue Mobilization in case of Natural Calamities and Disasters”. The report will be submitted by 31st October, 2018 by the GoM.

2. Revenue Gap

The revenue gap is decreasing and the Council will wait till the next month to comprehend with the ongoing trend. There was a detailed presentation about revenue position. It had been decided earlier that GST council secretary would visit revenue deficit states & analyse it. However, it was found that there’s no revenue shortfall in the North-eastern states. The Finance Minister stated that the deficit that the centre has to neutralise was 16% in first year.

3. 1% PAN-India Tax

The 30th GST Council Meet also had a discussion with respect to 1% PAN-India tax on commodities.

4. GST Collections

The GST collections in many north-eastern states had been beyond expectations. Also, an Analyst Panel will conduct a research over the GST collection across the states. However, there was no discussion on account of:

GST rate change on any product.

The inclusion of Petrol and Diesel under the ambit of GST.

There are still a lot of issues that require immediate attention of the GST Council such as simplification and automation of GSTR-9C, compliances for MSMEs, AAR discussions, etc. These issues were expected to be discussed in the 30th Council Meet.